Picture 2
Michela Walters’s Picture Choice: 2
Title: Winter Memory
Glancing out the window, I saw the stupid lights hanging along the back fence, a lasting reminder of Allen’s attempt to get me into the holiday spirit. Little did I know it would be the last symbolic gesture he’d ever make. A heart attack took him the day before Christmas and I kept forgetting to turn the timer off on those fucking lights.
“Mom, do you want me to take them down?” Lucas asked, nodding his head towards the fence out the window. My oldest son was taking his new role as man of the house seriously. A weight someone his age shouldn’t have to shoulder.
Rubbing his back, I tried to hide the tears leaking from my eyes. “No sweetie. Not yet.” While the lights represented everything I’d lost, the kids needed to feel like he was still with us. Even if it was just by the glow of a string of lights along the back of our yard.
He hugged me back with a fierceness I hadn’t felt in a long time. “We’re here for you, Mom. You know that, right?” Lucas’ eyes were filled with an innocence I thought he’d lost the night his dad died. “We’ll be okay.”
I knew that even though the coming months and years would be difficult, my boys would help me through it. “I know, baby. I know.”
We never did take those lights down. They stayed up year round until my youngest finally went off to college. It was the year I moved out of that house and left the memories of Allen in the past.
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Michela Walters is a wife, mother and book enthusiast. She is currently attempting her hand at writing her first romantic fiction novella. You can read her other stories on her blog: michelawalters.wordpress.com
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